But where are you really from?
No, really, where are you really from?
I’m standing at the desserts table at CES: Unveiled — a semi-swanky press event that the Consumer Electronics Association puts on the Sunday before the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
I’m reaching for a raspberry-colored macaron when someone taps me on the shoulder.
“Hi, I’m Andre,” says Andre. “I saw you from across the room and I thought you were gorgeous. Where are you from?”
I’m anything but surprised. Not because I consider myself to be so devastatingly attractive that men will rush across a crowded room of drunken reporters just to speak to me, but because I’m a female at a tech trade show. Mostly female, the tech world is not.
“I’m Sarah,” I say, while stuffing the macaron into my mouth (it tastes like Oreo cream sandwiched between two pieces of wet cardboard). I look down at my name tag, which clearly states that my name is Sarah and that I’m based in San Jose, California. “I live in San Jose.”
Andre cocks his head, and I know what’s coming next.
“But where are you really from?”
I know what he’s asking; I knew what he was asking when he asked the first time. What’s my ethnicity? What kind of Asian am I? Why do I look so exotic?
Here’s the thing: I don’t mind. I understand that many people consider this line of questioning to be rude and prying, but I don’t feel that way. In fact, as someone who’s particularly extroverted and a tad narcissistic, I welcome any questions that keep the conversation solely focused on me.
But what I do mind is being interrupted. And I will be — if not by his words, by the barrage of assumptions he’ll heap upon me as I unravel my story. How he’ll think that my ethnicity is in any way related to where I’m from, and who I am, when it’s not.
So I word my answer carefully, but I tell him the truth.
“I grew up in Tokyo, Japan.”
His eyes light up, as I suspected they might. “I love Japanese women,” he says, unaware that such a comment would probably be quite insulting to a Japanese woman.
“Irrelevant,” I say, and he looks confused. I love confusion.
“But…you’re Japanese?” He asks.
“No, I said I grew up in Japan.” I offer him no more; while I don’t mind if he asks for my ethnicity, I feel like he should at least have the balls — ahem, courtesy — to say it directly.
“So you’re half Japanese, then?”
“Nope.”
“Well, where are you actually from, then?”
I can tell he’s getting frustrated, but I don’t mind. I’ve already checked out the ballroom floor, finished up a couple of articles, and now I’m moving on toward what looks like little cups of creme brulee. “Japan, I guess. I mean, I grew up there.”
“I meant, what…what ethnicity are you?”
Ah, there it is. What ethnicity am I? And how will my answer help him in his quest to get to know me? If he thinks he might know something about my supposed heritage, or that he’ll be able to impress me with his travels to my supposed home country, he’s sorely mistaken. I’m much more complicated than that.
“I’m a mix. Half-Vietnamese, though,” I say, as I dart in between two photographers to grab a creme brulee tart.
His eyes light up again. “I went to Vietnam last year!”
“That’s nice,” I say through a mouthful of tart. “I’ve never been there.”
“You should go,” Andre says, clearly excited that he’s found some sort of (what he thinks is) common ground. “It’s beautiful. I love Vietnamese women.”
“I love sleeping in the middle of the day.”
“What?” More confusion.
“Sorry, thought we were talking about totally random things that we love.”
“I bet your mother is beautiful. All Vietnamese women are,” Andre says. Okay, this conversation is getting a little weird, but the nerd-rage-y side of me can’t stand when someone gets it so wrong.
“My mother’s not Vietnamese,” I say. “She’s American. Half-German, I think. Some part Welsh. From West Virginia.”
Andre, bless his heart, chuckles. “How did she meet a Vietnamese guy?”
“My dad’s not Vietnamese. He’s from Detroit. Half-mutt, as my grandmother used to say, and half-Swedish. See my last name? Jacobsson.”
Andre is completely stumped, so I offer him a lifeline, “I was adopted.”
He grins. The world makes sense again. And then he asks…
“So, what are your real parents?”
I just told you, Andre. My real parents are American. My mom is from West Virginia. My dad is half-Swedish. Let’s not get into this again.
